" 'They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead.' "

Among the hundreds of thousands of young men killed at the Somme were two of Tolkien's close school friends: Robert Gilson and Geoffrey Bache Smith. Tolkien discussed the death of Gilson in a letter written in the trenches to Smith shortly before he too was killed by shrapnel. The "hideous" experience of the Battle, as Tolkien described it, is often seen to be reflected in his written work.[3]

The Dead Marshes were inspired by the landscape of northern France in the aftermath of the battle.[4]